This is Knit’s latest addition to the Knit Family Menagerie, there’s only one problem though – he doesn’t have a name yet 😯
I knitted him up using pattern 9019 from King Cole Yarns, however the wool Luxe Fur,  is impossible to purchase because it’s completely sold out EVERYWHERE 😦  Undeterred, I decided to try knitting the design up using Tivoli Husk as a substitute instead and I think you’ll agree he’s turned out great?
He’s the baby bear and there’s also a mummy and a daddy bear (medium and large) on the pattern. Â He was fairly simple to knit up and the trick is not to stuff him to firmly with toy filling, otherwise he won’t be so cuddly.
The pretty knitted garment hanging behind our friend the bear is called The Pheasant Shawl by Julie Ferguson which I’d spotted in issue 73 of The Knitter in June and instantly fell in love with.  A naughty purchase of yarn for said garment happened on a trip to York during the summer and I managed to find some time in amongst knitting all the other projects to get it made up.  The yarn used is a double knit from West Yorkshire Spinners from the New Country Birds Collection and  is 100% Blue Faced Leicester.
Unfortunately, I ran out of the multicoloured yarn several rows before I’d completed the main part of the shawl, which means the shawl is slightly smaller than the size specified on the pattern.
The colours are beautifully autumnal, unlike most of the clothes I own
There have been so many yummy yarnny deliveries of late that the stock rooms are fit to burst and there’s a danger that I’ll go in one day and never return
There were 2 deliveries last week, 2 the week before and there have been 3 so far this week, with at least one more due.  Sadly, this does mean that I’m a little behind when it comes to telling you all what’s in and even more behind with knitting my samples for the shop 😳
Cracking on then –
Last week was a good week for those sock knitters among us with several different items arriving in to help keep your toes toasty. Â The Knitpro Karbonz in 2.5mm are back and I’ve also stocked up on the 2.5mm Knitpro circulars too.
Now for some yarn porn
3 delightful shades in Opal Beachcoming
The almost complete range of Opal Solids
Something we haven’t had for a while now – 6ply sock yarn.  It’s the Daydreaming range from Opal.  Can’t wait to give 6ply (double knit to you and me) socks a go 💡
Another new addition and one completely at the other side of the woolly spectrum is Flame from Rico Yarns.
Flame from Rico, is a lightweight super chunky yarn, note I said lightweight.  Each 50g ball contains a whopping 90 metres and knits to a tension of 10 stitches to 14 rows on 10mm needles.  it’s a wool blend, 40% wool/60% acrylic and I’ve opted for 6 of the available 7 variegated shades (2 of them were very similar).  Reasonably priced too at €4.99 per ball – Bargain!
We have patterns too and I’ve promised Dina a cardi but I have to cast on a jumper I’ve been promising Durahn first. Â In the meantime I think I might get a hat knitted up for the shop and possibly the odd Christmas gift too.
I’m happy, no throwing cartwheel ecstatic, to report that we’ve done it!
We’ve managed to collect our target 5000 stockings for the Knit Happens Campaign and more 🙂
The stockings have been checked, counted, bagged up into 50’s, (checked twice) and sent out in counter top boxes to the lovely East Cork Rapid Response people to distribute for sale around the East Cork area.
So far you should hopefully be able to find them at the following outlets.
Castlemartyr Resort
Garryvoe Stores
Ladysbridge Post Office
Greengrocer Castlemartyr
Castle Holistic Clinic Castlemartyr
Pobail Scoil na Trionaide Youghal
Cobh Leisure Centre
East Ferry Rowing Club
Robinson Tyres Midleton
Ballymacoda Post Office
Crowleys Youghal
O’sullivans Gortroe
Brodericks Garage Shanagarry
Sammy Revins Butchers Youghal
Read n Write Youghal
Sean Twomey Butcher Youghal
Crees Card Shop Youghal
Castlemartyr Florist
Centra Cloyne
Cloyne Post Office
Youghal Library
Wallis Bar Midleton
Midleton Park Hotel
Results Fitness Midleton
Dr. Morehan Killeagh
Colemans Newsagent Killeagh
Arcade Midleton
McCarthys News Midleton
Well n Good Midleton
4home Midleton
Costcutters Carrigtohill
Dr Dorans Surgery
Centra Carrigtohill
Bramley Lodge
Garveys Supervalu Cobh
Murphys Centra Cobh
Keatings Londis Newtown Cobh
Rosies Aghada
Days Whitegate
Nutrition Club Midleton
Ladysbridge Market
Old Thatch Killeagh
Community Radio Youghal
Big, big, big thanks to everyone involved so far.
We’re still in need of more outlets and would love to hear from any in the East Cork Area that would be happy to sell a few stockings to help raise funds for the East Cork Rapid Response.  If you see the boxes in any of the places mentioned, please take a photo and share it on the Knit Happens Facebook Page so we can give a little nod to all of those supporting the campaign.
There has been so much going on lately that I’m struggling a little more than usual to keep up.
On Sunday as I’d mentioned, I went to the RDS for The Knitting & Stitching Show. Unfortunately, for my ever suffering husband, my car decided it really had had enough of driving back and forth on the Dungorney Road.
I feel the need to point out to those of you that won’t be familiar with the afore mentioned road, that I mean ‘road’ in the loosest sense of the word. Imagine a road as smooth as silk, a pleasure to drive, that your car no matter the age, make or model, glides smoothly over.
The road from Lismore (where I live) to The shop in Midleton, is the exact opposite.
So Coni and I headed off in the wee small hours and arrived pretty much as the doors to the hall were opening. As usual there was a right mish mash of vendors, many with yummy woolly, fabricy goodness, lots of papercrafting and embroidery too, but there were quite a few stalls selling everything from clothes to hard skin removers, which as always is a little disappointing.
Happily there were a couple of stalls with new items on them including 2 new Irish companies that caught my eye especially.
Denise Pinnegar is the woman behind the new Irish business Unravel, which she runs from her studio in Co. Wexford. Â Denise has created several knitting and crochet kits which use Irish Yarns, find out more about Unravel here.
The Bead & Button Emporium is the brainchild of Sharon Murphy who has developed a unique collection of hand-crafted jewellery, buttons, beads and more.  Working with polymer clay, Sharon’s wares are beautiful and  imaginative with a little quirkiness thrown in for good measure.  As a fan of all things buttons I’ll certainly be looking into the possibility of becoming a stockist of The Bead & Button Emporium goodies.
The other items I purchased were material for my son to make himself a pair of trousers and some grey denim to make a dress for me. Â A hank of beautiful Coolree Yarn to have a little play with, a couple of books to add to my library and the ball of Katia Chevrolet is so I can knit it up an see if I’d like to get it in for the shop. Â I also picked up one of the fantastic Latvian Mitten Kits from Hobbywool as they were just to tempting to resist.
If that wasn’t enough excitement for one week TV3 met us at the shop first thing in the morning yesterday to film a 2 minute piece on our Knit Happens campaign for the lunchtime and evening news. Â Lee Ann Flemming a friend and one of our knitting group regulars was persuaded to come along and join me for the filming, bedecked in and rocking her woolly creations (thanks babes).
The cameraman Rory was a genius and really managed to bring out the beauty of the stockings when he zoomed in for the piece and I was really happy with how pretty the shop looked on the film.
What wasn’t shown on the clip was how much of an ‘accomplished’ knitter Paul Byrne is 😉
All of this publicity, on the telly and in the newspapers as fun as it looks, is to try and get our message out there and raise awareness of the very necessary service that is the East Cork Rapid Response.
Today I have 100 flatpacked boxes to get ready for the next stage of our Knit a Stocking Campaign – Selling Them. Â
We hope to have the boxes in the shops and business in the East Cork region, Â that have agreed to help us raise funds by the end of this week, so keep an eye out for them. Â It would be great if some of you could take the time to post on the Knit Happens Facebook Page if you notice one of our boxes.
Tomorrow is the launch night and I have to make a speech – wish me luck.
If I don’t finish this post now, it’s going to be Monday before I get back to it as I’m going to The Knitting & Stitching Show at the RDS in Dublin tomorrow ♥Â
The yarn companies really seem to have got their act together in terms of colour this season and have selected some beautiful hues to add to the palettes in their existing ranges.
Our most popular yarn in the shop is probably Sirdar Snuggly Double Knit and I’ve decided to add 5 new shades to our range. Â Look at that blue.
I’m loving the new aqua colourway in Supersoft Aran, but looking at the 3 new shades together they all look great.
Something similar again in Baby Hayfield Chunky yarn too.
Two pretty additions in Sirdar Baby Crofter.
Two more in Bonus Buzz. Â Every time I see the turquoise and grey colourway it make me think of knitting a stuffed robot for some reason?
Last but not least are 2 more shades in Bonus Aran Tweed and 1 lovely new shade in Bonus Aran (my son will be getting a jumper in this).
I’ll try and get some photos of the show tomorrow to share. Â A friend has recommended a few of the stalls already, I’m particularly looking forward to seeing the Latvian Knitting Kits. Â Hopefully, the rain will have stopped.
At the beginning of the month I shared a Ravelry link to the pattern for the Dropped Stitch Cowl by Abi Gregorio. Â As i mentioned at the time I was planning on knitting up one rather quickly after having fallen in love with the pattern.
The first one I knitted was for Dina in the awesome bright red Rico Super Chunky and I’m happy to report she loves it, so much so that it’s never going to be left in the shop long enough for people to see.
So when 5 new colours in Rico Creative Twist arrived in I knew the Dropped Stitch Cowl would be the ideal quick knit for a display garment. Â It took a little over the one ball and I’m actually going to knit up a stripey one as a Christmas gift using a ball of the grey with the remaining burgandy yarn.
I hate taking ‘selfies’ but there was nobody here to help me. Â basically my arms aren’t long enough to hold the camera far enough away and my hands are too small to hold the phone and press the button. Â However, in the spirit of ‘we’re all friends ere’, ta-dah!
Add this pattern to your Christmas Knitting list, you won’t be disappointed and neither will the recipient. Â The only problem will be everyone else asking you to knit one for them.
Dina my daughter said to me on Saturday “to be fair mum you never do things by half” and whilst I’m loathed to admit it, she could be right.
The best thing about taking on a big project like the Knit Happens Knit a Stocking for the East Cork Rapid Response Campaign and the blankets before, is the laugh we manage to have as the countdown begins. Â This Saturday was no exception, as my lovely knitting ladies turned up in force to help with the ‘quality control’ aspect of the campaign.
Every stocking that has been handed in so far had to be checked to ensure it was complete.  I’d noticed as they were handed in, that some of the little socks were without hanging loops, or had ones to small to successfully hang on a tree.  We also wanted to separate the novelty stockings, as we’re hoping to try and sell these for €5 each on a ‘Lucky Dip’ basis.
I need to say a big thank you to the following friends, for generously giving up their time on Saturday afternoon only to find themselves squashed into the kitchen with bags and crates of stockings.
Fiona, Lucy, Sadie, Deidre, Martina, Michelle, Shirley, Agnieszka and Lee Ann.
Hopefully, you can tell from the photos that we managed to have a laugh.
There’s more to sort and we’re hoping they’ll be a good few more stockings handed in too. Â In the meantime we managed to get through a good few of them and have checked, counted and re-counted the little stockings into bags of 50. Â These will be distributed to the businesses around the East Cork area, that have kindly agreed to try and sell some of them to help the collection for the East Cork Rapid Response.
81 bags ready to go so far, or to put it another way 4050 little Knit Happens Stockings which we hope will become €8100.
I follow Hannah Fettig aka KnitBot on Instagram and reccently saw a post to announce that she had released her Stashbot idea as an app for IOS. Â Originally, you could purchase Stashbot as a paper version from woolly stockists but the app version takes it to a whole new level of portability.
So what can Stashbot do?
Basically, Stashbot has been developed to make it easier for you to work out the average yarn requirements for certain, everyday garments in different sizes.
Searching stitches per 10cm
Searching stitches per inch
The first thing to note is that it’s based on tension/guage in other words the number of stitches knitted per inch or per 10cm’s. Â For example a standard aran weight yarn will knit to a tension of 18 stitches per 10cm’s or 4.5 stitches per inch.
Please note – that if you are using cm’s your yarn requirements will be displayed in metres and if you’re using stitches per inch it will be shown in yards.
Using this tension we can then check how much yarn on average, it will take to knit our chosen project in stocking stitch. Â The app suggests that you should reference the next size up for more textured knits.
At present the projects include
Vest/Shrug
Cropped sweater, 3/4 sleeve
Average length sweater
Long sweater/tunic
Hat
Mittens
Scarf/shawl/infinity cowl
Socks
There is an extensive range of sizes included on the app.
Sweaters in sizes from 16″ to 62″
Hats, mittens and socks from baby to XL adult
Scarves in small, medium and large and
Here you can see that if I wanted to knit a tunic for your average size two year old, with my standard aran weight tension, I’m going to need approximately 360 metres of yarn.  As I want to add a bit of texture with some moss stitch and maybe the odd cable I look to the next size up, this advises that my project will take 420 metres.  I have 600 metres of yarn to use up, so looking at the requirements for a hat for myself I can see that I should easily be able to complete both projects.  To be on the safe side I’d knit the sweater first though 😉
The lovely people at Stashbot welcome questions and feedback and have even incorporated a ‘contact us’ button at the top of the page. Â I, being my usual annoying self, found myself contacting the Stashbot team almost immediately to champion the addition of a super chunky, 9 stitches to 10cm tension. Â I’m happy to say I received a reply within a couple of hours to say they were already working on possible updates, yay!
I wonder if they’ll include a crochet element too?
Unfortunately, for those of you non iphone people, the app is currently only available on IOS but there is an email subscription that you can sign up to for notification when the app becomes available on Android here.
Stashbot costs $4.99 to download from the itunes Store.
Swift Knit Stripes is the latest super chunky yarn to be released from Stylecraft Yarns.
As with all super chunky yarns think quick knits, great for last minute gifts there are 5 shades to tempt you with several lovely designs created especially by the Stylecraft design team to show off the stripey effect.
Swift Knit Stripes is a blend of 80% Premium Acrylic and 20% Wool, easy-care, machine washable and only €5.60 for a 100g ball so it represents value for money.  Recommended needle size is 10mm’s with a tension of 9 stitches to 12 rows.
To further tempt you Stylecraft have produced a free pattern leaflet which you will receive with each Swift Knit Stripes purchase (while stocks last). Â The leaflet contains 4 patterns, each of which takes 1, 2 or 3 balls of the yarn and can be knitted in next to no time.
If you’d like to have a look at the rest of the designs pop over to the Stylecraft Pinterest Board hereÂ
I ran the hat up really quickly for the shop, but have realised it’s rather difficult to model hats now since I’ve had all my hair cut off :-0
My target customer in the shop is me, which probably means I tend to put a little too much thought into what we stock at times. However, I think and hope, that it’s what’s brings people from all over the country through our door?
For me as a knitter, there is always room for improvement and there been a couple of yarn qualities missing from our shelves that I would like to see including, a high percentage, wool blend aran weight. Â So I’ve spent a lot of time researching suitable yarns initially, by looking at the fibre content versus the recommended retail price and the range of colours available. Â When I’d narrowed it down to 4 yarns I bought samples to knit up, in order to access the finished fabric by comparing the stitch definition, drape and weight.
I know it probably seems like a lot of trouble to go to for one yarn, but this is going to be a staple in the shop, so it has to be right as there’s not enough room in the shop to have several yarns that do the same thing.
Of the four I knitted up, New Zealand from Adriafil came out top. Â The 75% wool, 25% acrylic blend is a pleasure to knit with, it creates great stitch definition and produces a smooth fabric that’s not too heavy. Â With some blends the acrylic can make the yarn look ‘shinny’, but there’s isn’t a hint of it with the New Zealand.
Each 100g ball contains a whopping 200 metres/219 yards which means very few are needed to to complete an average woman’s jumper.  I find it knits to the usual aran weight tension of 18sts by 24 rows on 5mm needles without creating a very dense fabric.  The colours are fantastic too, making it a great choice for babies and children’s knits too, not bad for €7.25 a ball hey?
I’ve currently chosen 12 of the 38 available colours and intend to add more over the coming months and if there’s any you think we could particularly do with, please say.
As I said I’ve had a play and have knitted up one of my favourite little patterns the In Threes sleeveless cardigan by Kelly Herdrich which is available on Ravelry for $6. Â If you don’t have Ravelry we now have in store access too, so you can purchase your pattern in the shop, we’ll print out a black and white copy and send the pdf directly to your email address too.
My bands look a little rough here 😦
Back to the In Threes cardi, it’s a great, speedy little knit. Â Knitted top down, with minimal finishing this little garment is hugely popular with the knitters of Ravelry with nearly 4500 projects to date. Â I’ve made six so far and count it amongst my ‘go to’ patterns. Â This little one is for the smallest size 0 to 6 months and it’s very generously sized. Â Having made this size before, I can confidently say that in most cases it’s a little more like 3 months to a year, so the baba will certainly get the wear out of it.
It took one ball of New Zealand yarn in the lovely soft turquoise and the multicoloured buttons from Rico add a little something extra and are a move away from my traditional choice of wooden ones.
The little cardigan is on display in the shop so you can have a squidge and see how lovely the New Zealand yarn is.
Nigel maybe?
Confessions of a Fibre Strumpet 